The following is from an article appearing “Counter Punch” under the heading “The Austerity Theft, Applied Around the World to Weak Countries, Now Used Against Europeans and Americans.”
“With only six decades of IMF history to draw from, the template being used in Europe (and in America) is (1) install or corrupt a political elite who will support extractive economic policies for the benefit of bankers, (2) in debt, or cause to become indebted, a naïve, oblivious or otherwise captive population who will accept, grudgingly or otherwise, the institutional convention that the debt is legitimate and must be repaid, (3) under a patina of intellectual legitimacy, implement openly extractive economic policies against entire populations for the benefit of said banks, (4) while the culpable elites retire to large houses behind high walls with their portions of the loot.”
The article goes on to observe:
“This is the game now playing out in Europe and, in a less visible sense; the U.S. Wall Street bankers (including European banks) are conspiring with corrupt, naïve, duplicitous or powerless peripheral leaders to implement austerity policies on indebted populations. These populations are indebted because of banker duplicity and/or because of the financial bubbles and their aftermath that Wall Street created. These austerity programs are for the sole benefit of the banks. In the U.S. the Wall Street banks were bailed out without being made to write off the bad loans that never should have been made. This creates a similar dynamic where some fair proportion of Americans will now live out their remaining days in debt slavery to the banks.”
We tend to think of the Greek economic breakdown as isolated, just as we reflect upon the Harrisburg Incinerator debacle which has brought the city to its knees …. and the Convention Center Project here in Lancaster which has hobbled our tourist industry and is likely to result in a county sales tax.
But they are all cut from the same cloth! Law firms specializing in such matters such as Stevens and Lee work closely with clients, financial institutions, legislators, investors, and special Authorities to foster dubious undertakings that enrich the firms with extraordinary legal fees (around $7 million for the Lancaster Convention Center Project) and generate profitable business for an array of bankers, other attorneys, architects, engineers and contractors. The Establishment gorges itself from the project’s feeding trough with the bill funded by long term bonds. It is all legal but nonetheless exploitive.
When the projects come a cropper, not properly vetted at the outset with impartial feasibility studies, tax payers are required to make up the deficits. As in Harrisburg, decade after decade, bonding capacity is utilized and stretched thinner and thinner, and then finally ruin occurs.
What was unique about Lancaster is the newspapers played hand maiden to the exploiters of which their ownership was a partner. Thus this normally conservative and prudent community was figuratively stabbed in the back… and as recently as the past week the editors of the Intelligencer Journal New Era refused to recognize and apologize for it.
Was this a onetime folly for Lancaster? No. The same betraying of the public interests is ongoing with Lancaster General Health (LGH). Its monopolistic or oligopolistic position in almost every facet of providing medical care in our county allows it to charge insurance companies higher fees than elsewhere. It makes historic profits, some years exceeding a hundred million dollars. But the higher fees paid by the insurance companies are passed on to insurance subscribers, the typical Lancaster family and employer. Thus LGH is effective taxing the community. (It is described technically by economists as imposing an ‘economic rent.’)
This would not be so bad if LGH lived up to its purpose as a Public Charity and, in turn, shared the profits to further public health. Instead it only gives pittances to other organizations with a similar mission, ‘hush money.’ Its board made up of white members of the Lancaster Establishment acts secretively, even thwarting public comment their Annual Meeting, the only meeting opened to the public (but not reported in the Lancaster Newspapers!).
It bestows an outright gift of $1,150,000 to its absent president without reference to propriety or law. LGH’s board is self-perpetuating. There is no representation from community stake holders such as clergy, government, unions, charities, civic organizations or minorities.
We do not question the quality of the care at LGH or the dedication and competence of its medical staff and other workers. But we maintain that the Trustees are little different than those who brought Greece, Harrisburg and the Convention Center to ruin…it is just that their monopolistic position and lack of transparency allows them to mismanage with impunity.
Doing something about this is on the Watchdog’s ‘bucket list.’ He could use some help from the readers.
The Convention Center Project here in Lancaster has NOT hobbled our tourist industry. Demand and occupancy are running at levels among the highest in the history of the County, and Average Daily Rate, after following the national trends, is rebounding nicely. And, there is no “likely” sales tax. A number of revenue sources were put forward as ideas by the LCCCA consultants, and a sales tax was one among the many. Brief discussion at the consultant’s public presentation around the sales tax idea suggested a tax of specific duration to fund specific county projects, to be retired at the end, like in other US cities. But then, you haven’t actually read the consultant’s report, nor did you attend the meeting. Your reporting is merely hear say.
EDITOR: Kevin Fry is the chair of the LCCCA. We were out of the country. We do intend to read the report at an early opportunity assuming it is available. We relied on reports from the local newspapers.
Interesting local analysis of the austerity-theft view. I expect what you are seeing happens all across the country and almost always people have wool placed over their eyes by the media, which is part of the problem. In many places local media is now part of conglomerates who do not do much local reporting and in others they are part of the local corporate leadership rip-off artists.